The Place of
Emotions
One of the most common results of finding
freedom in Christ is an affection for God and His Word. Latent feelings are
released from the subconscious to the conscious, which moves people to act in
accordance with the truth that transformed their emotions. Jonathan Edwards,
whose ministry was committed to the true religion, believed that in his day the
proper place of emotion was often overlooked. Speaking of people hearing the
truths of the gospel and the commands of God, he said:
. . . they often hear these things, and yet
remain as they were before, with no sensible alternation on them, either in
heart or practice, because they are not affected with what they hear; and ever
will be so till they are affected. I am bold to assert, that there never was
any considerable change wrought in the mind of conversation [conduct or behaviour]
of any person, by anything of a religious nature, that ever he read, heard or
saw, that had not affections moved. (Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2,
edited by John E. Smith, general editor Perry Miller [New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1959], pp. 101-02)
Jonathan Edwards further pointed to emotions
as the driving force of human actions, including religious actions. He said, “The
will never is in any exercise any further than it is affected” (Ibid., p. 97).
Evelyn Underhill shared a similar thought:
Now, when we do anything consciously and with
purpose, the transition from inactions to action unfolds itself in a certain
order. First we form a concept of that which we shall do; the idea of it looms
up, dimly or distinctly in the mind. Then, we find that we want to do it, or
must do it. Then we determine that we will
do it. These phrases may follow one another so swiftly that they seem to us
to be fused into one; but when we analyse the process which lies behind each conscious
act, we find that this is the formal sequences of developments. First we think,
then we feel, then we will. (Evelyn Underhill, “The Place of Will, Intellect,
and Feeling in Prayer,” from The
Essential Mysticism in The Fellowship of the Saints, compiled by Thomas S.
Kepler [New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1948], p. 626 )
The coming together of thought, feeling, and
action in the heart can be seen in the life of Christ. First, because He was “moved
with compassion” He fed the multitude in Matthew 15:32, healed two blind men in
Matthew 20:34, cleansed the leper in Mark 1:41, and He forgave us all (Matthew
18:27). Second, because the Lord was moved by anger, He overturned the tables
of the moneychargers. They had turned God’s house of prayer into a robbers’ den
(Matthew 21:12). It is important to note that He turned over the tables, not
the moneychargers. If we are moved by anger and wish not to sin, then we should
be angry as Christ was—be angry at sin.
Anger that is rooted in righteous indignation is not wrong; it moves us to take
action against what is unrighteous.
Writing on the emotions of Jesus, Robert Law
commented:
Anger, to speak broadly, is the combative emotion.
While compassion springs from the love by which we identify ourselves with
others, anger is naturally aroused by our antagonism of whatsoever sort. And as
the purpose of compassion is to enable us to do, and to do spontaneously or
graciously, kind and self-sacrificing actions which otherwise we might not do,
or might do coldly and ineffectively, so the natural use of anger is to enable
us to perform actions . . . and which without its stimulus we might be
prevented from doing by fear, or by the sympathetic sensibility which makes the
infliction of pain on others painful to ourselves; or which, again, we might do
only in half-hearted and unimpressive fashion . . . [Anger] is . . . a force,
an explosive liberation of psychical force, which for the moment raises a man
above his normal self. It gives physical courage, overcoming the paralyzing
effects of fear, so that with blood boiling and swollen muscles a man in anger
will hurl himself furiously upon an antagonist whom in cold blood he scarcely
durst encounter. It reinforces moral courage. (Robert Law, The Emotions of Jesus [New York: Charles Scribner & Sons,
1915], pp. 90-91)
God works through the emotional core of our
hearts to move us to repentance. We see this in 2 Corinthians 9:8, 10, where
Paul said:
I now rejoice, not that you were made
sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you
were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not
suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the
will of God produces a repentance without regret (NASB).
I have seen people feel sorry about their
past or sorry that they shared about their past with others. But I have never
seen anyone feel sorry after he or she repented. The conviction of sin produces
sorrow that leads to repentance without regret. True inner peace is the result
of complete repentance.
David became physically sick when he kept
quiet about his sin with Bathsheba. The hand of God pressed heavily upon him
until he finally repented. Then he was able to say, “Blessed is he whose
transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose
sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit”
(Psalm 32:1, 2). That tells us that sorrow which leads to repentance is never
divorced from the truth that is within us. In another Psalm in which David
expressed repentance over his sin with Bathsheba, he said, “Surely you desire
truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place” (Psalm
51:6).